Rose Wheezely and Healer Scorpius
by Frogster
Summary: "So, Miss Weasley," he drawls. "What are your symptoms?" She glares but answers anyway. "A sore throat; a throbbing, pounding head; a stuffy nose; and a pain-in-the-arse who won't stop badgering me." Rose is sick and Scorpius Malfoy appoints himself as her personal Healer-or is it Heckler? Lots of banter, a little fluff, a snarky Rose and a smirking Scorpius. Please R&R!


**Disclaimer: I don't own!**

**A/N: This is my first Harry Potter story, so I hope you enjoy. Thanks bunches to my two betas, The Lady Arturia and BeanerWeasley. If you haven't read their stuff already, you should!**

It is the first Monday of the Christmas holidays, and sixteen-year-old Rose Weasley wakes up with a cold. She has been working hard, constantly studying for her N.E.W.T. classes. It seems that neglecting nearly everything—including adequate sleep and food—in her quest for perfection, combined with the dank, damp halls of Hogwarts, has conspired against her and given her a whopping cold. She is miserable and fighting the building pressure in her head when someone knocks at her door. She looks up to see her mother, who has apparently come to say goodbye to Rose just like she does most mornings when Rose is home.

"I'm just about to leave, sweetheart," Hermione Weasley says, peeking in the door. Upon seeing a listless Rose, she rushes to her daughter's side. "Rosie?"

"I feel awful, mum," Rose croaks, sounding like a frog has jumped down her throat. Hermione clucks and smoothes back Rose's wild hair, checking her forehead for any sign of temperature. "You don't feel warm," Hermione says. "D'you want me to stay for a bit, make sure you're okay? I can always go into work a little late."

Rose smiles a little. "No," she says, coughing. "I just want to sleep."

Hermione nods, blowing a kiss to her eldest child, and promises to send up some tea with honey and maybe some toast.

Rose has just fallen back asleep when her door opens again. Groaning, she opens her eyes in time to see Scorpius Malfoy carrying a tray into her room. "Rise and shine, Weasley!" he says a little too loudly, causing her to groan again. He looks over at her and jumps exaggeratedly, nearly spilling the tea. "Merlin, Weasley," he fake-gasps. "You look frightening enough to scare a dementor."

She frowns, wondering why the bane of her existence is in her room. She asks as much and he rejoins, with over-the-top politeness, "Now, is that any way to treat someone who comes bearing food?"

"If that someone is you, then yes," she retorts, coughing every few words.

"Then I guess you don't want this tea…" he trails off as she reaches for it and he hands the tray of tea and toast to her.

"Your mum sent me up, said she was running late," he offers by way of explanation. "Your mum was right—you do sound awful."

She merely raises an eyebrow at his stating the obvious. "What are you doing here?"

"Thought I'd come hang out with Al," he answers, shrugging. "It gets boring at my house when my parents are at work."

She sips her tea, smiling slightly as the honey-laced warmth soothes her scratchy throat. "But you know that Al rarely gets up before noon…"

"Yes, I know," he answers. "But I thought I'd come pester you until he got up."

She groans again and lifts her hand to her aching head, Scorpius' grating voice and annoying presence making her head hurt even more.

She opens her eyes and he's looking at her, head cocked. "You've been spending too much time locked up with musty books and it's given you a cold."

She sips her tea again, then says "Excuse me if I want to do well in my N.E.W.T. classes." They're what's separating her from approaching adulthood; she has to succeed. There's no other option. She refuses to think that there could be another option. Not for her—not for Rose Weasley.

As if reading her mind, Scorpius interrupts her thought process by saying "You always do well; you're Rose Weasley."

While his compliment is unexpected, it doesn't stop her from resuming her former train of thought. She starts thinking about what might happen if this is the time she _does_ mess up.

She can feel her forehead wrinkling like it does when she's worried about something. Scorpius apparently notices, judging by his next words. "You'll be fine, Weasley," he drawls, as if the idea that there could be any other outcome was simply ludicrous. "Don't worry about it. Worrying will just make you sicker, and you won't do well if you're sick."

She's horrified at the thought. He chuckles softly, telling her he's just teasing.

"But it's a good thing I'm here to help you get better."

Rose rolls her eyes. "Don't tell me you're going to practice for becoming a Healer on me, Malfoy."

"Fine, I won't tell you," he quips. "But do you see any other sick people here?"

She's coughing again and can only glare, so he takes that as an invitation to pull up a rickety desk chair, spin it around, and sit backwards, elbows resting on the back of the chair. He puts on what she thinks he deems a professional Healer face, but his ever-present smirk breaks through.

"So, Miss Weasley," he drawls. "What are your symptoms?"

She glares but answers anyway. "A sore throat; a throbbing, pounding head; a stuffy nose; and a pain-in-the-arse who won't stop badgering me."

He chuckles again. (He's always amused at her retorts, which only infuriates her more.) "And how long have you been experiencing these symptoms?"

"The first three since I woke up—although my throat has been gradually getting sore over the last couple of days—and the pain-in-the-arse for the past six years."

He smirks. "I don't know what to do about your pain-in-the-arse,"

–"I could think of a few things," she grumbles before sneezing—

"but I think I could help you with the rest."

He gives her a once-over and she feels uncomfortable under his gray gaze. For some reason she's intensely aware of her reddening nose, eyes that are beginning to water, heating face, and overall sickly appearance.

"What are you trying to do, Malfoy, heal me with mind power alone?"

"No," he answers softly, rising from the chair and coming over to her bed. "Just assessing the situation."

She doesn't have time to answer because his pale hand is settling against her forehead, the coolness of his touch shocking against her heating skin. It's weird, having Scorpius Malfoy touch her in a similar manner to the way her mother had earlier—gentle but practiced. His lips purse as he tries to judge the temperature of her skin. She's surprised when he suddenly moves both hands to her ears, long fingers attempting to cup them.

"What are you doing?" she coughs. She's not used to this kind of treatment from him. When they're around each other—which is actually quite often, considering that they share a best friend—they're bickering. Sometimes they get along long enough to study without a major incident. Sometimes they temporarily join forces to defend one of the younger members of the Weasley-Potter clan in the off chance that someone dares to insult a member of Rose's family. But right now, Scorpius is being almost kind. He's stopped insulting her for longer than five minutes, which must be a new record.

(Oddly, she kind of misses the insults. At least she knows how to react to them.)

He answers her question, bringing her out of her reverie. "Checking your ears," he says, as if this is obvious and normal. "My mum always used to check mine when I was sick; she said it was sometimes easier to check for a fever by feeling a person's ears rather than their forehead." He drops his hands from her ears. "And you do have a bit of a fever."

She groans; she does not have time for this. Not only are N.E.W.T. classes hanging over her head, it's nearly Christmas and her birthday is coming up.

"Come on, eat your toast and drink your tea, Weasley," he says. "You need to keep up your strength so you can get back to fighting with me and living amongst your precious books."

She doesn't want to drink her tea on principle, just because he asked—her toast has gone cold, so it's useless—and so she tries to quell the urge to drink her mother's tea, gripping the handle tightly. He's amused at her attempts to resist, judging by the way a corner of his mouth tilts upward, then breaks into a full-fledged smirk when the scratchiness of her throat wins out over her need to act contrary to his words. She glares at him over the rim of her teacup.

"You know, Wheeze," he begins nonchalantly, and she narrows her eyes at the new nickname, obviously coined because her breathing is now starting to make whistling sounds—"Many of the girls at Hogwarts would kill to be in your place right now."

"And what place is that?" she asks as he conjures a wet cloth and places it over her forehead. "I knew your silly fan club was made up of girls who don't have two brain cells to rub together, but I didn't think they would be so brainless as to _want_ to be ill."

"No, Wheeze, I meant that those girls would kill to have me taking care of them in bed."

Her eyes widen and she nearly chokes on her tea, leading to more coughing, as she realizes the seeming implications of his statement.

Surprisingly, the young man who loved to flirt took a minute to realize what he'd said and how she was construing it.

"Naughty, naughty Rosie," he says, smirking, although she could detect a hint of pink in his cheeks. "I know you love having me here, but get your mind out of the gutter."

"Who says I love having you here, Malfoy?" she asks, coughing again. "And don't call me Rosie."

"Well, you haven't kicked me out or hexed me out the door, so that leads me to believe you like having me here."

"The only reason I haven't hexed you out of here is because I'm not seventeen yet and I'd get in trouble for doing magic off school grounds while underage," she retorts, brandishing her now-empty teacup at him. It automatically refills as she continues, tapping a finger to her chin. "Although, I don't think even the Ministry could get too mad at me for hexing _you_. I could just tell them you provoked me one time too many. I think they'd understand."

He looks at her, eyes narrowed. "It's because I'm a Malfoy, isn't it?" he snarls.

She looks at him like he had grown a second head. "What?!" she asks as she turns the cloth on her head over to get to the cool side.

"You mean the Ministry would be okay with you hexing me because I'm a Malfoy, because of who my family is and what they've done," he growls, eyes blazing.

"I said no such thing," she says, sneezing and reaching for a handkerchief he conjured for her.

"But you meant it."

"I most certainly did not," she retorts, growing angry. She had learned a long time ago to never draw his family's past into their rows. Not that she ever really needed to—she found it irrelevant.

(She figures he would have annoyed and infuriated her no matter what his last name was.)

"Stop putting words in my mouth," she continues, twirling her bushy hair up off her sweaty neck. "You know I would never stoop so low as to taunt you about your family's past. I merely meant that your personality and actions alone would be enough to make them see the necessity of my actions."

His shoulders slump as he digests her words—she hadn't realized how tense he was until just then. "Sorry," he mutters, making her eyes grow wide. Scorpius rarely apologized, and never for getting angry at something she'd done—or in this case, for something he thought she'd done. "I'm supposed to be looking after you and instead of acting like a professional and helping you get well I'm blowing things out of proportion."

She sits in silence for a few moments, sipping her tea and contemplating his words. Finally, she speaks. "It's okay, Scorpius," she says quietly, subconsciously using his first name. "I know how defensive you get when you feel your family's been slighted, and it's understandable. Your loyalty is…commendable," she finishes.

He nods, then turns to her and smirks. "So does that mean you're not going to hex me?"

Rose rolls her eyes for what seems like the umpteenth time. "Not unless you do something particularly heinous," she answers, sneezing again. "But even then I might hesitate. Don't particularly want to face anyone's wrath right before my birthday. But in a couple of weeks, you're fair game."

Scorpius looks a bit shocked at Rose's statement. "Where's your Gryffindor bravery, Weasley?" he asks.

"Would you believe that I'm not concerned so much about the Minister of Magic's reaction as I am about my mum's?" she asks, her voice beginning to grow hoarse.

He chuckles. "Actually, no. Your mum can be quite scary. She helped defeat You-Know-Who; anyone in their right mind would be scared of her."

She starts to laugh but falls to coughing. That seems to remind Scorpius of why he's actually there, and when her fit ceases, he scoots closer and reaches towards her, long fingers traveling toward her neck.

She can't help it; she jerks back. "What are you doing?" she asks. He's much too close and she doesn't like the idea of his hands touching her neck.

His eyes flash but settle almost instantly. "Relax," he says, voice soft and soothing. "I'm just going to check the glands in your neck and see if they're swollen." He pauses. "You didn't think I was going to hurt you, did you?"

She shakes her head, and he visibly relaxes. "You're just too close," she whispers. "Don't you have any concept of personal space?"

He smirks, fingers reaching up again to caress her neck. "So I do affect you," he murmurs.

Her eyes widen at the feel of his callused fingers on her skin. "Of course you affect me," she manages to choke out.

He raises one eyebrow, surprised. She continues, aware of the rising heat on her cheeks. She figures her fever is rising. "You are the most infuriating person I've ever met, and considering that James and Fred are also in that category, that's saying something. You know how to push my buttons."

He blinks—she guesses that he had expected something else from her. What, she didn't know.

"That's not what I meant," he grumbles, snatching his hand back. "Your glands are fine, though—no swelling."

He asks her if she needed another cool cloth and motions for her to drink some more tea. After she drinks a few sips of tea and he replaces the cloth on her head with a fresh one, she speaks again.

"What are you still doing here, anyway? Al should be up by now, and some of the others are at the Burrow too. Or"—she grumbles this last part—"you could be answering the piles of letters from your adoring fan club that are undoubtedly waiting for you. You don't have to sit here cooped up with me."

"But I want to," he says gently, leaning slightly towards her.

She opens her mouth to protest, but he lays a long finger against her lips, silencing her. "Don't worry, love," he continues in the same soft voice. "None of those girls will ever take your place."

She stares at him, baffled. Lately, Scorpius has taken to calling her "love" at odd moments—even during one of their bickering matches. His use of a word normally used as a term of endearment was as disarming as _expelliarmus_—maybe more so—and it confused her endlessly.

(He says such things because he knows it discombobulates and flusters her, throwing her off track so she forgets whatever retort or comment she had come up with, she's sure.

There are no other possible reasons for his shift in tactics—there can't be.)

She's scrambling for something to say, something to break his intense gaze, but it proves elusive.

(She thinks her cold must be affecting her mental faculties.)

Finally, agonizingly, he trails his finger down her lips, catching briefly on her bottom one before returning his hand to his thigh. She opens her mouth—to ask him what he means? She doesn't know—but is suddenly overcome by a coughing fit that makes her double over due to its virulence.

When it subsides, she raises her head slightly, blinking back tears brought on by the force of the coughs that had racked her body. Scorpius is staring at her. "I don't like the sound of that," he finally says gruffly.

"What, your voice?" she counters, although her voice is gritty, like sandpaper. He snorts. "No, your cough. It sounds like you're about to hack up a lung." She tries to snort at his blunt assessment but is overcome by another fit. She feels his hand come to rest on her shoulder. "Rose, can I try something quickly? I promise to let you rest afterwards."

Rose nods—she's exhausted. Bickering with Scorpius has zapped most of the strength she had left, and despite the ease and preciseness with which he needles her constantly, she knows he'd never hurt her.

She feels his hand drift over her back as he instructs her to lean forward slightly and cough again. She coughs a few times while his hand roams her back over her cotton nightshirt, his gentle ministrations threatening to lull her to sleep. She guesses he is trying to check the state of her lungs, though how he can do such a thing just by running his hand over her back, she doesn't know. She is sure there's some kind of incantation for such an action, but cannot think of one off the top of her head.

When he stops, she flops back onto her pillows. She sees that his mouth is pulled into a grim line before she closes her eyes, intent on getting some rest. "I'm going to owl your mum," he says. "Your cold may be trying to settle into your lungs, which might bring on pneumonia," he continues, obviously thinking she will protest. Rose can't bring herself to say anything, though; she is just focused on sleep. She feels him brush a curl away from her face as he says gently, "Get some sleep, love."

The last thing she hears before sleep claims her is the sound of her bedroom door shutting.

Rose is awakened by a light pressure on her forehead. She stirs, half moaning, voice laden with sleep. "Mum?" she asks.

A deep chuckle resounds from above her. "I'm not your mother," the voice rumbles.

Rose's eyes shoot open. "Scorpius?" she asks, highly confused—had he just kissed her forehead as gently as her mum would have done?

(And yet, it wasn't quite like her mother's soothing touch…)

"The one and only," he says, smirking, drawing her attention back to him.

She rolls her eyes and clears her throat. It isn't quite as scratchy as it had been before she fell asleep, but that probably was because she hadn't been bantering with Scorpius in quite a while, which had allowed her voice to rest. "It's a good thing there's only one of you," she says. "The world couldn't handle any more Scorpius Malfoys."

He smirks again. (She wonders if his mouth will ever settle permanently in such a position. She wants to slap that Merlin-forsaken smirk off his face, but for some reason, his legion of fangirls think it's charming.) "But what about any future miniature Scorpiuses? Surely you wouldn't deprive the world of that adorableness."

She groans. "Oh Merlin. The thought of you having children is terrifying," she proclaims, sneezing. "Your devil sons would terrorize all the poor girls in sight."

"Not all the poor girls, if they were anything like me," he says, eyes boring into hers. "Just one girl for each of them, a brilliant, snarky girl who was annoyingly impervious to their charm."

Before she can even start to wrap her mind around the implications of _that_ statement, Scorpius continues. "C'mon, Weasley," he drawls. "You know you like the idea of a few little Malfoys running around."

She huffs—trying to clear her stuffed nose as much as trying to convey her annoyance. This conversation was becoming absurd. 'Do all Healers badger their patients?" she retorts, glaring down her nose at him.

He laughs. "No, just me, and only when the patient is you."

"Well, what makes me so special?" she asks, wondering why he was back to being a git. He had been so nice before he had left…how long had she been asleep, anyway?

"Because you're you, love," he says simply, as if that explains everything. "I don't have time to go into detail; you don't need to get a big head."

"So," he says, finally assuming the stance of a Healer. "How are you feeling? Did your nap help? You were out for over three hours."

"Three hours?" she says, shocked, and coughs again.

"Yes. Oh, wait, I almost forgot—here's some soup. I snuck it over from the Burrow—I went over there after you fell asleep to see what everyone was doing." He hands her a bowl of her grandmother's chicken soup.

"I don't even want to know how you managed to sneak this out without Grandma knowing, but thanks," she says, digging in.

"You're welcome. Now. Feeling any better?"

"Some," she says, inhaling the homey aroma of soup, the steam beginning to clear her nose. "Headache's nearly gone—but that could be because _you_ left," she continues, motioning towards him with the spoon. "Throat doesn't hurt as much, but I'm still sneezing and coughing."

"And the pain-in-the-arse?" he asks, eyes twinkling with amusement.

"Oh, he's still here. He has rarely left in six years."

He grins smugly. "I sent an owl to your mum, telling her you seemed to be getting worse. She said to let you sleep for a while and to come wake you up mid-afternoon. She said she would be home around 4. I asked her if there was something I could give you to keep pneumonia from settling in—I know there are potions for that—but your mum said she didn't have any, and I didn't feel comfortable trying to make one. There's more tea, though. Your mum seems to swear by tea."

Rose nods. "She does. You said you went to the Burrow?"

"Yes," he answers. "Found Al—he's downstairs, by the way, but I told him he couldn't come up until I'd seen how you were—and got roped into helping your grandmother prepare for Christmas for a while. That place is a circus, and your grandmother's the ringmaster. We didn't even get to taste-test the food—we were on tree duty instead—and someone had left some Weasley's Wizard Wheezes products—I think they were called Wizbangs, or something like that—in the box of ornaments last year. I think they were prototypes and they didn't have all the kinks worked out, because things started catching fire, including one of Fred's eyebrows. So your grandmother shooed us all outside. I bet someone left those in the box on purpose so your grandmother would be forced to send us outside when they activated…"

Scorpius regales Rose with a story about how James had decided to line up all the garden gnomes he could find and try to bowl them over with massive snowballs, not realizing that the garden gnomes wouldn't stay in one place long enough for him to start gnome bowling.

Scorpius throws himself into retelling the story, acting out how James had been chasing one pesky gnome, and Rose finds herself laughing so hard her face turns as red as her hair. The door opens, and Albus pokes his head in. "I heard a commotion," he says, "and I wanted to make sure you two hadn't killed each other."

"On the contrary," Scorpius drawls, motioning towards Rose, who is attempting to compose herself long enough to finish her soup but is breathing heavily instead. "I was just telling Wheeze here about James and the gnomes."

Albus laughs. "You should have been there, Rosie. It was hilarious. How are you feeling?"

"Rose, you're breathing too heavily," Scorpius says, sounding worried. "I was just trying to make you laugh, not make it hard for you to breathe. I'm sorry."

Scorpius seems to have forgotten that Albus is in the room because he sits down next to Rose. Albus, for his part, is giving Scorpius a knowing look that goes unnoticed by the blond. Scorpius has reverted to Healer mode—that's the only reason, Rose muses, that he is now rubbing her back and telling her to take slow, deep breaths.

When Rose is able to speak again, she tells Albus that she feels better. Albus looks at the two of them curiously before launching into telling Rose and Scorpius everyone's estimated time of arrival at the Burrow for the holidays and hinting at a last-minute gift idea.

To Rose's surprise, Scorpius continues sitting next to her, hand still skimming lightly over her back as she eats her soup, sips her tea, and listens to Albus and Scorpius chatter about possible Christmas presents and new Weasley products—as well as how such items might be snuck into Hogwarts. Rose comments some, but is mostly content to rest her voice. Oddly, Scorpius' caresses—for that was the only way to describe his meandering touch—were leaving her content as well. Rose was confused, but she didn't want to pull away. As much as he had heckled and provoked her that day, Scorpius had also taken care of her, and Rose found herself grateful and a little touched.

A little over ten minutes after coming in, Albus gets up to leave, saying he doesn't want to remain in Rose's bedroom for too long lest he get sick himself. Scorpius, however, doesn't seem to care about moving from her side. Rose is considering asking him why he was staying even though she could be contagious—in spite of realizing that such a question could lead to him making a salacious comment about being in her bedroom—when her mother walks in.

"Mum!" she says, coughing a bit, but smiling.

"Rosie, how are you feeling?" Hermione asks, coming over to her daughter. Scorpius' hand had stilled when Hermione came in but remained resting on Rose's back.

"Somewhat better, Mum—the tea and some soup have helped, but I still feel like staying in bed the rest of the day. I want to take it easy so I can get better quickly—it's Christmas, after all, and I don't want to spend the whole holiday stuck in bed."

She thinks that Scorpius, despite Hermione's presence, won't be able to risk a crack about different reasons for staying in bed for the rest of vacation, so she nudges him with her elbow. He looks at her, eyebrows raised, but his eyes are glinting—he knows exactly why she nudged him and is silently admitting to having a perfect quip ready, but doesn't look guilty at all.

"Good," says Hermione. Rose and Scorpius turn back to Hermione, who glances over her daughter before continuing. "I think rest is just what you need." Hermione turns and seems to be assessing Scorpius, who still hasn't moved, and a faint smile tugs at her mouth. "And I think you've had an excellent future healer taking care of you, haven't you?" she finishes, turning back to Rose.

Rose knows without even having to look at Scorpius that he has donned a self-important grin. "Oh, Mum, don't be giving him a big head, or he won't be able to fit through the door," Rose says, once again rolling her eyes before glancing at Scorpius and saying softly, "But yes, I think I have."

**Thanks for reading! Please review!**


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